[xeilmach]

So my father's restaurant business is being sued, because it doesn't comply with the American Disabilities Act of providing easy access for handicapped people.

The thing is that the suer and his lawyer (who is also handicapped) are doing this to every restaurant to get money. They don't even tell you what is wrong with your place as a warning (we are violating housing and accomadation act as it seems). They just sued you for quick cash.

The ADA makes it that if you open such a business, it's automatic that you must comply. This was signed into law by Bush's father (yes, damn Bushes) I mean we're not really English speakers so we wouldn't know that. Plus, the restaurant was bought from someone else.

We are facing hard times and can't even pay rent.

I'v fortune read on my dad and foresee he will live a shortlife (i hate it because it's accurate). I never knew why exactly, but this thing really got to him.

From this, I really saw my dad suffering and coming out from his high and mighty side. I guess I really love him now seeing that he can be like me.

I don't know what to do and wish that someway I could put an end into this really "unlawful" practice of this lawyer or revise the law.

[loveof]

if they bring u to court dont u have the right to have a lawyer?
i dont know about the states.. but in canada ur allowed to have a lawyer and if u cant afford one your entitled to legal aid or something.
u also have the right to know why and to get a translator. well it would be good for u to go read up on your rights and if your taken to court they should repeat your rights and stuff like that..

[Shikabane Hime]

if they bring u to court dont u have the right to have a lawyer?
i dont know about the states.. but in canada ur allowed to have a lawyer and if u cant afford one your entitled to legal aid or something.
u also have the right to know why and to get a translator. well it would be good for u to go read up on your rights and if your taken to court they should repeat your rights and stuff like that..

I remember lawsuits being annoying situations cause you don't exactly have the time to play around with the legal system. It takes too much time, money, and effort, especially on someone just messing with you.

[xeilmach]

^ Exactly.

We are getting a lawyer, but none of the lawyers in the cases against that crippled lawyer won.

America's laws are too inflexible and only protects the bad people.

I don't know how to comfort my dad. But there goes my hard-earn scholarship money down the drain

[achu]

1st. what instigated the suer to even sue in the first place. ask him for a personal account on encountering a difficulty due to the lack of handicap services at the business. date, exact time, provide a recount of his "route"

if you're forced into a lawsuit, you're best off to provide extremely strong arguments and try and "scare" them off, make it seem like you mean b u s i n e s s and to make it seem like trying to get money off you is just a complete waste of their time.

anyways, you're in a lose situation no matter what. truth is that now that its gotten out, the business has done something not according to law and is punishable.
but i'm assuming the ADA giving you a fine/warning is better than getting sued? i dont live in usa so i dont know. just an assumption.

maybe...you can say that:
1. you were not aware of the fact that your business was not handicap accessible.
2. the bylaw governing force never came and checked, therefore the reason for number 1.
3. no other handicapped individual has filed a complaint against the business.
4. the government, has not properly delivered the necessary information (in this case, the interpretation of this ADA act), and as a result the business could not comply even if it wanted to. language barrier. arent they supposed to give you information in the language that you request it? or maybe i'm just too canadian sorry haha =.=

dunno if that helps. good luck

[xeilmach]

lol thanks, Canadians are awesome. I wish I could move to Canada.

Yes, we are in a lose -lose situation no matter what. American laws shall be the downfall to its own government and people in the future.

Anyway, I'll help my dad with those things, thanks!

But thing is that that guy has gone away with many cases already, so it's hard

[Rangerboi]

1st. what instigated the suer to even sue in the first place. ask him for a personal account on encountering a difficulty due to the lack of handicap services at the business. date, exact time, provide a recount of his "route"

if you're forced into a lawsuit, you're best off to provide extremely strong arguments and try and "scare" them off, make it seem like you mean b u s i n e s s and to make it seem like trying to get money off you is just a complete waste of their time.

anyways, you're in a lose situation no matter what. truth is that now that its gotten out, the business has done something not according to law and is punishable.
but i'm assuming the ADA giving you a fine/warning is better than getting sued? i dont live in usa so i dont know. just an assumption.

maybe...you can say that:
1. you were not aware of the fact that your business was not handicap accessible.
2. the bylaw governing force never came and checked, therefore the reason for number 1.
3. no other handicapped individual has filed a complaint against the business.
4. the government, has not properly delivered the necessary information (in this case, the interpretation of this ADA act), and as a result the business could not comply even if it wanted to. language barrier. arent they supposed to give you information in the language that you request it? or maybe i'm just too canadian sorry haha =.=

dunno if that helps. good luck

Yeah go with that and you are protected by the US legal system, in the event that you are unable to afford a defense lawyer, you are entitled to a lawyer provided by the US judicial system.

Best Wishes,

Rangerboi

[kelvin6]

No, not all commercial buildings have to be handicap accessible, that is not a law, if the building is rented or leased as is without remodeling or structual work (requiring a work permit), then you (your dad) is not legally required to make the restaurant handicap accessible (ie. handicap ramp, etc). For example when the restautant was bought and was not handicap accessible to begin with. There is no such law as if you open a business that it must be ADA compliant, as far as I know many buildings where i live have opened businesses and they aren't ADA compliant even though they have been approved and certified by the city government.

Don't listen to what this handicap person lawyer tells you its basically a scare tactic to make you cough up some sort of small settlement because they know that small business owners like your dad can't afford to get a good defense lawyer, so they offer to take a settlement to drop the lawsuit. This is extremely common and these people who take advantage of this should be condemned. They prey on small business owners particularly ones that aren't fluent in english (minorities).

I'll tell you a personal story about my own dad, who used to own his own restaurant. If there is one thing I learned is that people tend to prey on the inexperienced business owners. My dad used to run a convienence store and before I was born, he knew he had to make more $$$ to support the family as well as trying to buy our first house. My grandma moved from Hong Kong to help take care of us and gave my dad and my uncle half of her savings. My uncle invested in a downpayment for a house and my dad invested it in a restaurant business hoping to make the money back as well as a financial gain in the american food restaurant business. The business started out fine and my dad was hiring more and more people to sustain this business. His restaurant was on a big stretch of street with other restaurants where basically competing against him. So my dad and three other restaurants made some sort of pact to non-compete (which is unrealistic to begin with) and form a alliance (sounds like the Axis of WWII). My dad felt like he was doing well enough that he bought us our first house. From that point on things turned...

This was now the mid 80s and I was just born. This era was when the economy was in a slump/recession or was going into one. What happened now was that my dad was somehow pressured into buying shares of these other three business owners of their restaurant. What happened was that when the economy went down, my dad simply couldn't keep up and was forced to go into bankrupcy (and not just his own restaurant, but the other three as well!). Apparently these other owners knew about this turn down and sold it to my dad who was inexperienced in this restaurant business and while they got away with their money, my dad lost all of his! Before we even moved into our house we had to sell it, because my dad was now jobless. My mom had to go back into the workforce to work. I was a baby, so i didn't care or know what was going on around me...

Twenty three years later, i'm now all grown up, I still live in the same apartment (although now because of rent control its actually crazy cheap to stay LOL). I'm now about half a year away from graduation and starting my career in the medical imaging field and i'm not going to make the same mistakes my dad made (i'm not a business person anyways) and now that my dad is getting to that retirement age (i know he won't retire... he'll be too bored at home), i'll be there to support him since he tried his best for me.

What I want to say to the original poster is that things now may seem very dark in your family, but things will get better with time. You have to get through those rainy days in order to see the sunny bright days ahead.

[xeilmach]

Thanks a lot Kelvin. I really feel for you, but I think that makes me feel we'll have to be strong just as you guys were.

I am going to take your advice and do some legal investigations of my own.

[kelvin6]

The smartest thing to do, and it will make your parents feel uncomfortable is to actually let this go to court. Then you can get a court appointed defense lawyer who will take care your dad. I tell you, this is just a scare tactic to get u to cough up some settlement.

For my dad in his situation, my mom was ready to divorce him and take my sibilings and I away. Simply because he caused so much grief from a bad decision that it costed us the family savings, college savings, the unmoved into house, etc... although my mom didn't, she hung in for my dad and stayed (now they have been married for 35 years to date). Believe me, that is tough...

[momoko doll*]

everybody faces hard times. especially in the case of a lawsuit...I would do some research and hire a very good lawyer to be on the safe side. usually if you get a good lawyer and they're experienced they can usually get you out of any mess (especially since its not like anyone murdered anybody) without charges but you have to pay the lawyer a lot.

fight it through court or see if you can get the case dismissed; and i agree its probably just some scare tactic. look up some information about your situation and if you do the proper research i'm sure everything will turn out fine.

[Lie]

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. It's unfortunate when people use their disabilities to take advantage of others.

[chocolate*]

maybe...you can say that:
1. you were not aware of the fact that your business was not handicap accessible.
2. the bylaw governing force never came and checked, therefore the reason for number 1.
3. no other handicapped individual has filed a complaint against the business.
4. the government, has not properly delivered the necessary information (in this case, the interpretation of this ADA act), and as a result the business could not comply even if it wanted to. language barrier. arent they supposed to give you information in the language that you request it? or maybe i'm just too canadian sorry haha =.=

dunno if that helps. good luck

Ignorance is not a valid defense. The law does not work that way.

Don't listen to what this handicap person lawyer tells you its basically a scare tactic to make you cough up some sort of small settlement because they know that small business owners like your dad can't afford to get a good defense lawyer, so they offer to take a settlement to drop the lawsuit. This is extremely common and these people who take advantage of this should be condemned. They prey on small business owners particularly ones that aren't fluent in english (minorities).

I don't know exactly what is or isn't written in the law, but I think what kelvin6 wrote is right on the dot. They are going around hitting up places in hopes you will settle out of court to give them quick cash. If you can't afford a lawyer, try to see if there are any pro bono legal societies that can give you a free consultation and give you some direction into what you can/cannot do. I think you will get more accurate and quicker help from those who are familiar with the law than from Soompi...

[nelly]

out-of-court settlement? It could work, you know.

[onhotwires]

Go to a lawyer forum and ask them for their opinion.

There's always a loop in the law.



Wow. I just looked around on the internet about this and man, are these guys annoying. =_=

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ad...99.story?page=1
<a href="http://www.blinkx.com/video/penn-teller-my happy poopoo-handicap-parking/3TPhxC4REWHpcMIgvfWzQA" target="_blank">http://www.blinkx.com/video/penn-teller-bu...REWHpcMIgvfWzQA</a>
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_arc...59751/index.htm

"If someone in a wheelchair has been doing laundry once a month for a year at a laundromat where the paper-towel dispenser is too high, "you're entitled to $12,000," the lawyer advertises."

"Rather than settling for $2,000 or $3,000, the owners of the Mandarin Touch restaurant -- which serves waffles by day and Chinese food to the dinner crowd -- persuaded U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie to declare the Polish-born law school graduate a "vexatious litigant" and bar him from filing more suits in the seven-county Central District of California."

"Consider the case of Audrey Jacques, an employee with bipolar disorder who worked for DiMarzio, a maker of electric-guitar components based in New York City. DiMarzio alleged that Jacques was extremely confrontational with co-workers and supervisors. Though Jacques denied that allegation, DiMarzio fired her. Because she had a diagnosed condition and said her employer was aware of it, Jacques was able to sue. She won in federal district court. DiMarzio was ordered to pay $50,000 in damages for emotional distress and $140,000 in back pay. When DiMarzio appealed, the decision was reversed. Both parties dropped the case in February."

Ahh, America, the land of the lawsuits.

My dad owns a small business too, and it makes me really angry that these guys are targeting small, immigrant owned businesses. What kind bs crusade is it to target people who have their own difficulties (in terms of language and knowing American laws, but then again, apparently even some big corporations were sued....) It's a law that has good intentions but too easy to take advantage of. And really, no matter how difficult it is to eat at your favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant bc it doesn't have a ramp, unless the renovations are cheap, it's cruel to demand that these owners pull thousands of dollars out of their bumholes either for renovations or to pay for the charges pressed. If anything, there should at least be an inspector to come around if they want to enforce this act so badly.

I have another idea but it's completely pulled out of my bumhole. Maybe you can pressure/gather up enough public pressure for this guy to lift the lawsuit/charges? Lay on the pathos....thick.... Though exactly how you can get the community to help you out and band together with you... I don't know...


.....This is what I do instead of studying for finals.

[<3LeeDongWook]

sorry to hear about that mike. hope things turn out for the better for your family.

[natt2828]

im sorry to hear that, tho i know i cant do anything to help but to wish u all the best.
those bastards .. no wonder they're handicapped.

[xeilmach]

I read everyone's replies, thanks a lot! I really appreciate the advice!

@Natt: lol, I'm a fortune teller so I believe that it could be karma from past lives, but it doesn't apply to every handicapped people. Unfortunately I cannot read my own fate except from my father's


The thing is this. Since we cannot pay rent for our restaurant and we're actually losing money, there's nothing we can do because there's that lease that isn't expired until 2010. The means we have to work at least one more year and lose money that way. Who knows, maybe they'll even be more lawsuits on the way.

Here's what I proposed:

~~Settle this out of court, but those damned ppl set us in for a hearing~~~

- Act ignorant and not comply with them
- Say that we don't have money (the restaurant is being sued so we can say it's not earning money)
- Thus, the cripple ppl won't get anything out of this, but to prevent themselves from looking bad that they only sue restaurants with money, they'll sue this "in the honor of all handicaps"
- We say that we don't have money for rennovations
- Hopefully the government will step in, take the restaurant and void the lease, thus we don't have to pay for breech contract
- They win, and we get to close down our business without losing money
- I bet those crippled suers would love to see us run out of business and that's what we're hoping to happen without having to pay anything except give up the money-drainingrestaurant
- we stop working (waking up to shop for early produce, staying late for parties, etc.)
- my dad will get unemployment benefits for these two years while remaining at home or doing some other work so that he can educate my sibling and I more in Hong Kong and look more into it
= then in 2010, we move to Hong Kong away from the Land of the Court Cases (it's a viable option and that it would actually work out - I want to discard my American identity for a long time now except my parents think that China look upon those with American degrees )

My parents thought that was a great idea to turn this disaster into something good because we've always wanted to stop the restaurant since we're losing a lot of money for its rent (we would even give the restaurant away for free, but no one wanted it)

So what do you guys think of my proposal?

[kelvin6]

I know how you are feeling right now, but realistically, you let it go to court and ask the court for a public defender (court appointed lawyer). This isn't really a time for sarcasm, even if what you said was what you seriously intend to do, its not realistic.

Plus your dad can't get unemployment pay because he is self-employed. Oddly the only way you can get unemployment pay is if your dad paid (representing the restaurant) unemployment tax to the government, he can collect on it, but not likely though. Closing the restaurant in bankruptcy can cost your family even more... don't ask me how I know (you read my post). The ideal way to get out of the restaurant business is to actually sell it and unfortuantly this can be a repeat of what happened to my dad where he didn't know about how bad the economy can affect the restaurant industry...

Bankrupcy is really last resort, because that will damage your dad's credit (if he borrowed money from a bank or institution to start his business) for 7 years. For my dad that really crippled his finances...

Even if your dad can't succeed it doesn't mean you can't. You are in the same generation as I am, being the first generation american born chinese (i don't know if you're chinese, but i'm assuming you are) and my dad, though a american college graduate, gone to the best schools, he felt and still feels that he failed and not succeeding in life. Sometimes I use that as my own motivation to suceed or at least do something important in my life. I know this is very tough time for your dad and although you aren't in his restaurant business, you as part of his family are experiencing the side effects. I know that this is hard especially if your parents rely on you to translate and handle many of their 'official' stuff. I don't know how old you are, but I know that you feel that this is something that you shouldn't be involved with and that you probably want to be just a regular person instead of being attached or dragged along by your parents who can't speak english and rely on you for their translation and other stuff. Its tough now, but you have to stay strong and hang on, because those sunny bright days are ahead, just take things day by day now.

BTW, where do you live? I know some other laws that do apply that can help you.

[hankyungsaranghaex3]

you seem to have a good grasp of english, so I suggest researching the ADA guidelines yourself, and finding out exactly how you're violating this handicap law.

next, you should make a list of possible arguments.
public defense lawyers are free, so I suggest working together with your lawyer to build a stronger case. Since you've already researched the topic, don't let this lawyer bs their way out of this.

if worse comes to worst, work the pathos

i wish you the best!